Dudley spoke with decision, but he made no impression worth speaking of upon his hearer. She continued to look at him with the same expression of dull malignity; and when she spoke, it was without vehemence.
"Well," she began, leaning forward a little more and keeping her eyes fixed upon him, "perhaps you won't have the chance of defending anybody long. There's been a woman about here lately, making inquiries and hunting about, and one of these fine days she may light upon something that'll put her upon your track."
"Why, Edward Jacobs's widow, of course. She had an idea where to look, you see."
Dudley could not hide the fact that he was much disturbed by this intelligence.
"Poor woman! Poor woman! Who can blame her?" said he at last, more to himself than to Mrs. Higgs, "I've done what I could for her, sent her money every week since--"
To his amazement, Mrs. Higgs suddenly interrupted him, bringing her fist down upon the table with a sounding thump.
"You fool!" screamed she. "You--fool! You've given yourself away! You deserve all you'll certainly get! Do you suppose a Jewess wouldn't have wits enough to trace you by that? By the fact that you sent her money?"
"But I sent it anonymously," said Dudley.
"That doesn't matter. Money? Postal-orders, I suppose?"
"Well, they can be traced. Oh, you fool, you wooden-headed fool!"
There was a pause. Mrs. Higgs appeared to have exhausted herself in vituperation, while Dudley considered this new aspect of the affair in silence.
"Well," said he at last, "if she does trace me, who will be the sufferer, do you suppose--you or I?"
"Why, you, you, you, of course!" retorted the old woman with heat. "You will be hanged, while I can bury myself like a mole in the ground and be forgotten, lost sight of altogether."
She said this with unctuous satisfaction, and Dudley gave her a glance of horror.
"And what particular pleasure will it give you, even supposing such an outcome possible, to see me hanged?"
The old woman's indecent delight faded gradually from her face as she looked at him. Then she rose slowly from her chair and came a step nearer to Dudley, who instinctively recoiled from the threatened touch. She noticed this movement, and resented it fiercely.